Throughout this application various publications are referred to by number in parentheses. Full citations for these references may be found at the end of the specification. The disclosures of these publications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety into the subject application to more fully describe the art to which the subject invention pertains.
Although significant progress has been made in the molecular characterization of cancers, such as breast cancer, at present there are insufficient methodologies to predict risk for metastatic disease. Most biomarkers rely on correlating changes in overall protein levels with specific cancer-related biological processes; however, it is recognized that primary tumors, such as in breast cancer, exhibit alterations in signaling pathways that will affect post-translational modifications rather than elicit gross changes in protein expression levels. As a consequence, changes in post-translational modifications (e.g. phosphorylation) may be better predictors of disease.
The present invention addresses this need by providing a biomarker which is a predictor of metastasis and cancer prognosis.